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Accelerando (book)
Accelerando is a 2005 science fiction novel consisting of a series of interconnected short stories by British author Charles Stross. As well as normal hardback and paperback editions, it was released as a free ebook under the Creative Commons attribution-noncommercial-no derivatives license (CC by-nc-nd). Plot introduction The book is a collection of nine short stories telling the tale of three generations of a highly dysfunctional family before, during, and after a technological singularity. It was originally written as a series of novelettes and novellas, all published in Asimov's Science Fiction magazine in the period 2001 to 2004. The first three stories follow the character of "venture altruist" Manfred Macx starting in the early 21st Century, the second three stories follow his daughter Amber, and the final three focus largely on her son Sirhan in the completely transformed world at the end of the century. According to Stross, the initial inspiration for the stories was his experience working as a programmer for a high-growth company during the dot-com boom of the 1990s http://www.accelerando.org/2005/06/10/#sfbc-1. A sequel novel entitled Glasshouse, loosely set in the same universe, was published in June 2006. Explanation of the novel's title In Italian, "Accelerando" means "speeding up" and is used as a tempo marking in musical notation. It could also refer to the accelerating rate at which humanity in general, and/or the novel's characters, head towards the technological singularity. Characters *'Manfred Macx' : Venture altruist. High Whuffie factor. *'Aineko' : Manfred's robotic, increasingly intelligent cat. *'The Lobsters' : Sentient, nervous-system state vectors originating from Panulirus interruptus - the California spiny lobster. *'Bob Franklin' : Billionaire investor; originator of the Franklin Collective borganism. *'Annette Dimarcos' : Arianespace employee; Manfred's second wife. *'Pamela' : Manfred's partner, later first wife. *'Gianni Vittoria' : Former Italian Minister for Economic Affairs, sometime Minister for Transhuman Affairs, economic theoretician. *'Amber Macx' : Manfred and Pamela's daughter. *'Dr. Sadeq Khurasani' : Muslim imam, engineer, Field Circus crewman. *'The Wunch' : Predatory alien virtual constructs embedded in the router orbiting Hyundai. *'The Slug' : Sentient alien corporation from the router. *'Sirhan al-Khurasani' : Son of Amber and Sadeq (physical versions). *'Vile Offspring' : Derogatory term for the posthuman weakly godlike intelligences that inhabit the inner system. Plot summary and breakdown by story In the following table, the chapter number (#), chapter name, original magazine date of publication (in red), and a brief synopsis are given. The nine stories are split into three parts. Allusions/references to current science * Lobster stomatogastric ganglion (STG) ... 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 * Rubberized concrete * Fermi paradox. Stross offers a solution - it's a problem of bandwidth (see Information theory). * Roboticist and futurist Hans Moravec is mentioned. * Quantum state vector, p. 6 * Nanoassembly conformational problem, p. 14 Awards and nominations * Book won the 2006 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. * Book was shortlisted for: **2005 BSFA award **2006 Hugo Award for Best Novel **2006 Arthur C. Clarke Award * Original short story "Lobsters" (June 2001) was shortlisted for: **2002 Hugo Award for Best Novelette **Nebula Award for Best Novelette **runner-up for the Theodore Sturgeon Award * Original short story "Halo" (June 2002) was shortlisted for: **2003 Hugo Award for Best Novelette **Theodore Sturgeon Award * Original short story "Router" (September 2002) was shortlisted for: **2003 BSFA Award * Original short story "Nightfall" (April 2003) was shortlisted for: **2004 Hugo Award for Best Novelette * Original short story "Elector" (September 2004) was shortlisted for: **2005 Hugo Award for Best Novella Release details *Ace (US), hardcover, July 2005, ISBN 0-44101-284-8 *Ace (US), paperback, July 2006, ISBN 0-44101-415-6 *Orbit (UK), hardcover, Aug 2005, ISBN 1-84149-390-9 *Orbit, UK, paperback, June 2006, ISBN 1-84149-389-9 Online versions * The entire novel has been released online under a creative commons license here. * Original short story "Elector" (September 2004) is available here. * Searchable version in multiple formats ( html, XML, opendocument ODF, pdf (landscape, portrait), plaintext, concordance ) SiSU See also * Accelerando Technical Companion (on wikibooks) External links * [http://www.accelerando.org Accelerando website] * SciFi.com interview. * Hunting for typos! * Charlie Stross offers latest novel, Accelerando, for free (The Alien Online, 8/26/2005): Includes commentary from Stross about reasons for releasing freely-downloadable novels. Category:Postcyberpunk Category:British science fiction novels Category:2005 novels Category:Transhumanist books Category:Creative Commons-licensed works fr:Accelerando it:Accelerando